


Descent

by Telperien



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Character Parallels, Gratuitous Use of Hypertime, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, Multi, Not Beta Read, POV Bruce Wayne, Parallels, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 12:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14671188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telperien/pseuds/Telperien
Summary: Years ago, when Batman was just starting out, he was too late to save a man from falling to his death. Now it's happened again, only this time it's Jason standing on the balcony, staring downwards, not Selina.(Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper/Batman #424)





	Descent

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be published on April 27th, but obviously that didn't happen. Batman #424 was more difficult to adapt than I'd counted on. So... happy belated Jason's death day!

**Then.**

The nuns had reported Magdalene Kyle missing immediately when she didn't make it back to the orphanage by curfew. That was good. Most people thought there was a waiting period before a person was considered "missing," and by the time they filed the report, the trail had gone cold.

Sister Mary Elizabeth had been the one to call the police. She was the head of St. Jude's Orphanage, a sour-looking older woman, but when Batman found her, she was feeding stray cats in an alleyway. But appearances were deceptive. He had learned that a long time before the Bat.

She shrieked, sending the cats scampering, when she turned around and found Batman standing behind her. He gave her no time to recover. "Magdalene Kyle," he ground out. "Tell me everything about her recent activities. Anything she said about her friends and family. Their enemies."

Sister Mary Elizabeth clutched at the neck of her habit. "She has no family. Her mother committed suicide when she was a child, and her father died from liver failure a few months ago. There was a sister, but Maggie hadn't heard from her in years. No one has. She ran away from Sprang Hall—the juvenile detention center." She twisted the fabric between her fingers. "Maggie got it into her head recently that she could find her sister if she went around asking everyone in the East End if they'd seen her. She had an old photo, and—I said she could if she _promised_ to be careful. She must have been doing that when she was taken."

It was a leap from _missing_ to _abducted,_ but Sister Mary Elizabeth sounded completely confident.

Batman prodded at her assurance. "She might have found her sister. She might have stayed with her."

The woman bristled. "I have raised hundreds of children, sir. I know these children, each and every one of them, and Maggie wouldn't run. She's a good, hardworking girl. She wouldn't worry us like this, not if she could help it."

That might be, but even good, hardworking girls had secrets they didn't tell nuns.

"What's her sister's name?"

"Oh, it was something outlandish, like hers... Selina, I think. That's right. Selina Kyle."

Batman thanked her. As he left, he heard her curse the cats.

Back in the Cave, he typed "Selina Kyle" into the police database. So far, the sister was his only lead, and he knew it was significant that Maggie Kyle had been searching for her missing sister before her own disappearance. _Everything_ was significant.

The search results surprised him. Bruce had expected a criminal record—she _had_ been in Sprang Hall—but he didn't expect to _recognize_ her in the dozens of mugshots that filled his screen. The girl in the photos was three, four, six, _seven_ years younger than the woman he knew now, but he recognized her.

Months Batman had been chasing Catwoman over the city, and he had never learned her name. He had never discovered her base or her allies. The only clue Bruce had was that they had first come to blows over a girl and a pimp, back before he was Batman, when he had gone into the East End in disguise, but they had both disappeared as surely as Catwoman had. He had hoped the girl was with Catwoman and not the pimp, but he didn't have much faith. Not in Gotham.

Now another girl had gone missing, and her sister just so happened to be Catwoman? This was no coincidence. It wasn't luck either, though it almost felt like it.

 _(Selina Kyle,_ he mouthed, savoring the name.)

He focused on the case. Over the last few months, as she robbed Falcone, Maroni, and Loeb alike, Catwoman had made plenty of enemies who would go after her sister if they had discovered her identity, and the longer Maggie was in their custody, the more dangerous her position became. Batman couldn't afford any distractions. _Maggie_ couldn't afford any distractions.

His investigation led him to Stanley Miller, the pimp Catwoman had fought that day, and an abandoned theater. He arrived too late to learn what Catwoman and Miller said to each other, but just in time to dive after Maggie Kyle as Miller threw her from the scaffolding.

They landed safely, but _hard_. Batman had taken the brunt of the impact upon himself and grunted in spite of his armor. Maggie rolled away from him and pulled herself up onto her hands, eyes wide, breath frantic. "Oh God—oh _God_ —thank you, thank you—Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus—oh, God— _thank you_ —"

Miller landed beside them with a sickening _crack_ , and Maggie howled, her babbled prayers more incoherent than before. Miller had died on impact, his neck broken.

Batman looked up.

Catwoman was staring down at the body with an expressionless look on her unmasked face. She didn't seem to register him, or Maggie, or anything else except the dead man lying on the floor.

She snapped back to life when Maggie cried out, _"Selina!"_ and darted down the rotting stairs, reaching the ground just in time to catch her sister as Maggie threw herself into her arms. Selina returned the hug, muttering something in Maggie's ear that made her hack out a laugh.

Batman was forgotten. But not for long. "What happened?" he asked.

Selina shrugged, Maggie still wrapped around her torso. “He tripped on his own shoelaces,” she said. He was surprised at how flat her voice was. He had come to expect the lilting way she teased him.

Perhaps Miller _had_ tripped. Batman didn’t have time to interrogate her further. They could hear the police sirens approaching, and they knew they couldn't stay. Batman had a warrant out for his arrest, and the Kyles were daughters of the East End, with all the baggage that entailed.

The two girls exchanged a single look before they took off, disappearing into the night.

He should follow them, he knew. They would lead him right to Catwoman's base, possibly to the girl who had gone missing that night after Batman first encountered Catwoman and Miller. He should make sure Maggie made it back to the orphanage in the morning.

He didn't. He went home instead.

His file on Catwoman doubled that night. He added everything he could find on Selina Kyle to the dossier... up until it came time to describe what had happened only a few hours ago. He hesitated, his fingers frozen an inch above the keys.

He _liked_ Catwoman. Batman had fought Doctor Death and the Mad Monk, and he had gone up against the Red Hood Gang. He had seen the worst Gotham had to offer, and Catwoman was as far from the worst as he could imagine. She was only a thief, she didn't hurt anybody who couldn't afford it. He didn't _want_ her to be a murderer.

Letter by letter, as slowly as he could, Bruce typed out “Miller tripped and fell to his death. Selina and Maggie fled before the police could arrive.”

Later, he went back and changed it. Added his uncertainties.

In the years to come, his thoughts rarely ever turned to Stanley Miller. He scowled at the unsympathetic article reporting the man's death, frustrated by the apathy of the _Gotham Gazette_ as usual, but after that? He put Miller out of mind. Bruce didn't flagellate himself for every failure as Alfred and Leslie accused him of doing. He had other, more pressing thoughts than his numerous early failures, and Catwoman was always doing something new, something _intriguing_ , to keep his mind on her and not on that one night.

He didn't forget, but he tried not to remember.

He sealed her file when Dick came to live with him and Robin joined his crusade, so the children never learned about Miller or the darker parts of her past. Dick and Barbara liked her, and she liked them; they could learn about it from her or not at all.

 

**Now.**

His breakup with Selina had hit him hard. Harder than their previous breakups. This one felt permanent, more permanent than the others had. Before, their arguments and estrangements had seemed more like sorties and strategic withdrawals, but now...

She'd never told him to go to Hell before. This time she had.

What surprised him the most was how hard Jason had taken it. Jason had made a point of scowling and sulking whenever Selina came over to prove how much he disliked her—a feeling that Selina claimed was reciprocated, not that he believed either of them—but then he locked himself inside his room and refused dinner that evening after Bruce told him, no, Selina wouldn't be joining them. They had broken up, so Jason probably wouldn't see Catwoman out of costume for a while.

That started his arguments with Jason, funny enough. Or maybe it was just a coincidence, the breakup and Jason's sudden call to disobedience. He was fifteen now, and Bruce well remembered how difficult Dick had gotten after he'd turned fifteen. He could even remember how difficult _he_ had been, but he hadn't had a parent to disobey, only servants, teachers, and trustees.

Neither Bruce nor Dick had rebelled in quite the same way as Jason, however. Neither of them comprehended vigilantism the same way as Jason did. They were both the victims of sudden crimes that had robbed them of their security and their way of life in one cruel moment. Jason had never held illusions of personal security. His losses had come at him fast and unceasingly until he had nothing left to lose. He held different opinions on what Gotham needed.

Jason poked holes in every aspect of Batman and Robin, and Bruce had committed too much—lost too much—to those personas to accept that easily. The arguments turned vicious quickly, every single time, and Alfred's disapproval was cold and ever-present.

It came to a head during the Garzonas investigation. Barbara's shooting had made things worse, certainly, but they had to work through that for Barbara's sake. There was no personal connection to the victim to keep them civil during the Garzonas investigation.

It was just the two of them and the expanding distance between them.

Robin was the one who found Gloria Stanson battered and violated, abducted from her own home and taken to Felipe Garzonas's by his bodyguard. It was so over-the-top, so obvious what had happened, that for one brief moment they imagined it would end well enough. That Gloria would only need to suffer through a short trial before the jurors were convinced and the judge laid down the sentence. Before she had justice and could start to heal.

But her attacker was free to go forty-five minutes later. He was never even booked.

Robin growled as Garzonas strolled out of the police station, not a concern in the world. "I want this guy," he said, squeezing his hand into a fist.

Batman knew the feeling. _God,_ did he know the feeling. "Well, you can't have him... at least, _not_ for what he did to Gloria Stanson. But that doesn't mean we're done with that little creep."

"What have you got in mind?" Robin asked.

Jason wasn't impressed by his solution. It seemed like a slap in the face, to him, to tell Gloria that they couldn't prosecute her rapist for rape but they could prosecute him for drug possession. Like she was worth _less_ than a kilo of cocaine. And even then, even if Garzonas were found guilty, the worst he could face would be deportation.

"So he'll assault _those_ women instead of _these_ women," Jason bit out. "That's your idea of justice?"

Bruce didn't sigh. "No, it isn't."

The plan worked, and that should have been enough to give them at least an illusion of accomplishment. But it wasn't. Gloria certainly didn't think it was enough. She didn't feel safe, they couldn't make her feel safe, and she killed herself to escape Garzonas's threats.

Again, Robin found her, but this time he didn't have a reason to stay with her. She was dead, he could provide her no comfort, so he left.

Batman knew where he had gone, of course he did, but he still arrived too late. Garzonas was sprawled out on the pavement, his neck broken, and Robin was staring down at the body from where he stood on the balcony of Garzonas's apartment.

It was a horrifyingly familiar scene.

Jason had reminded Bruce of Selina from the first. It was only natural that one quick-witted thief remind him of another, especially when they looked so alike with their dark hair and green eyes. Then he got to know Jason as the Gunn case unraveled, and the similarities kept coming—the boldness that clashed with their common sense, their morality and pragmatism, their resilience and sharp sense of humor.

Neither of them hesitated when they knew what they had to do.

"What happened?"

Jason wouldn't look at him. Bile rose in Bruce's throat. Jason was _Robin_ now, so Bruce couldn't see his son's expression. The mask covered Jason's face and hid what he was thinking, what he was feeling.

Bruce remembered all too well the blank expression on Selina's face when she stared down at the body of Stanley Miller, all those years ago. He had never asked her what had happened in the gallery of Bruzinsky's Theatre that night. The last time Bruce saw Maggie, she'd said the law wasn't the only path to justice, and she hadn't answered when he asked if she meant the Church.

He swallowed. "Robin, did Garzonas _fall_... or was he _pushed_?"

Jason's head jerked. Now he looked at him. "I guess I spooked him," he said slowly. "He slipped."

His grappling gun was in his hand, and he fired before Bruce could understand what he was doing. Jason disappeared into the city, and Bruce watched him go. He would meet him back at the Cave, he decided. They would talk about it there.

But Jason wasn't in the Cave when he got there.

"Master Jason didn't return home with you?" Alfred asked, perfectly polite and completely horrified, when Bruce asked if Jason had already gone upstairs.

His tracker placed him in a satellite cave not far from Garzonas's apartment, but security footage revealed that Jason had only used that cave as a place to change out of his uniform and into the street clothes stashed there. He raised his middle finger to the camera as he left. Which was... atypical. Even considering Jason's recent behavior.

Bruce's fingers wrapped around his cell phone before he realized what he was doing. He had never told Jason about Miller, and none of the children had ever gotten through his security measures. Selina would never have told him of her own volition. Jason could have no reason to seek her out tonight.

He pressed "call" anyway.

The phone rang four times before she answered. _"What?"_ Selina bit out.

"Is Jason with you?"

"No..." He heard her stretch. A cat meowed. She was in bed, he'd woken her. "Why isn't Jason with you?"

There were hundreds of ways to answer that. What Bruce said was "Felipe Garzonas is dead."

She snorted. "Good."

"He fell. Like Stanley Miller did."

Selina was silent for a moment, then she said, softly, "I thought you'd forgotten about that."

"No. I didn't."

She exhaled. "I'll find him. You stay put. The last thing he needs right now is your black and white morality."

Bruce dropped his head into his hand. "You'll bring him home?"

"Yeah, Bruce." Her voice was low and quiet. Melancholy. "I'll bring him home."

She hung up. Bruce had nothing to do but go upstairs and wait for Jason to come home.

Bruce waited in his father's study, sitting in his father's chair. He wondered what Thomas would think if he saw his son now. What Martha would say. He wondered if Selina had found Jason yet and if she'd bring him home like she had said she would, and once he started thinking about that, he couldn't stop. He wanted to search the streets himself—damn his promises—until he found Jason, but he kept his word and stayed put.

He lasted until nine o'clock.

Bruce was crossing the entrance hall to tell Alfred that he was going out to find Jason when the beeping of the front door heralded his son's return. He froze. He could only stand there as the security system disengaged and the door opened to reveal Jason, blessedly alive and whole. Selina was standing behind him. They could be mother and son, standing like that.

But Selina wasn't Jason's mother, or even his stepmother. She'd made that decision, so Jason was _his_ son and his alone.

Bruce took a step forward, drawing their eyes to him. Selina raised an eyebrow, her lips pursed. Jason scowled.

Bruce opened his mouth to say something— _anything_ —but Jason pushed past him and stormed across the hall, his hands shoved inside his jacket pockets. He didn't say goodbye to Selina or thank her, and Selina didn't call after him. Bruce heard Alfred hail "Master Jason" as they passed each other by, entirely deliberately if Bruce knew anything of Alfred's tactical maneuvers, and he was glad for the chance to speak with Selina before he had to chase Jason down.

The problem was he didn't know what to say. He resorted to "Thank you for bringing him home."

"Where else was I going to bring him?"

 _I don't know, Selina. I never know with you._ Bruce put his hands into his pockets and looked away. He didn't say what he wanted to say. They both had said more than their fair share, and they'd hurt each other. "Will you stay for breakfast?" he asked, in the steadiest voice he could muster.

She snorted. "Thanks, but no thanks. I have four kittens waiting for me at home. Men are so useless I've decided to lean into becoming a cat lady."

He ignored the jab. "I'm sure Jason would appreciate it."

"You think _that's_ what he wants?" Selina leaned backwards and looked at Bruce, really _looked_ at him, like she had never seen him before. She didn't seem impressed. "Talk to your son, Bruce. Maybe this one will stick around... _if_ you put some effort in."

Selina flipped up the lapels of her rain coat and walked down the front steps, through the April mist to a waiting car. Bruce let her go. He couldn't chase after her, not now. He needed to settle things with Jason, he knew, and as soon as possible.

That was easier said than done. Jason had escaped Alfred while Bruce was distracted.

Bruce found the butler standing in the hallway, stunned and dismayed. "Master Jason has retired to his room. He said he will not be joining you for breakfast," Alfred said before he fled back to the kitchen.

Dick had never taken his arguments with Bruce out on Alfred. Dick had accepted Alfred as another part of his new life, a strange part perhaps but one no more exceptional than the mansion, the school uniforms, or Robin, but Jason couldn't. Jason had known servitude. From Mrs. Gunn's child thieves to the Falcones' pushers, he had known servants. Jason had always thought of Alfred as an extension of Bruce's will and treated him as such. He had never imagined Alfred as a potential ally.

Jason didn't look for allies. He didn't believe in wasting his time, and looking for allies—for friends—was a waste of time to him. Jason hadn't had a friend in all the world since his mother's death. Bruce had meant to be another, but it never seemed to work out that way, did it?

He hurried up the stairs. _This time—_

Bruce reached the second story in time to hear Jason's door slam shut and the lock click. His steps slowed. The Manor was too sturdy for the slamming of one door to reverberate through the walls, but it felt like it had.

He sighed. He should knock, but... He'd talk to Jason later.


End file.
